From Arctic exploration through to “spitfire knuckle” – plucky stories from the archives.

Air Commodore Cozens was more than a highly accomplished RAF pilot — he was also a filmmaker whose work helped shape the war effort.

From the frozen extremes of the British Arctic Air Route Expedition, where his photography and film earned him the Polar Medal, to wartime footage so sensitive it was locked away under the Official Secrets Act, Air Commodore Cozens was always at the heart of history. His Arctic film Northern Lights even reached the big screen in London’s West End.

Join us for a fascinating and deeply heart-warming conversation with his daughter, Harriet, as she shares memories of an extraordinary life.

Web: 

www.talesfromthearchives.co.uk

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Sound Credits:

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Extraordinary and fascinating archives online!

Extraordinary and fascinating archives online!

Transcript

SDS Kate 0:08

Welcome to our fourth episode in a festive series special. My name is Kate, and each episode I'll be taking a deep dive into the fascinating world of archives. This episode, we now set our sleigh towards the Arctic. At SDS, there are moments when we feel truly privileged, moments when we're entrusted with archives of people who have led extraordinary and fascinating lives. Air Commodore Cozens is one of those remarkable individuals. His family brought us a private collection to digitize, hoping to preserve his personal photographs, papers, and awards for future generations. Air Commodore Cozens studied mechanical sciences at Downing College, Cambridge. After leaving Cambridge, he joined the British Arctic Air Route Expedition in 1930 to 1931 as the official photographer and filmmaker, capturing a world that few people of his time have ever witnessed. So we are joined today by Harriet Cozens, who can shed more light about her father's life and archives. Hello, Harriet, and thank you so much for joining us. Hi, Kate. Lovely to be here. Thank you for inviting me. Thanks. So your father began much of his filming work while he was at Cambridge. Could you tell us a bit more about how he got started? Do you know what drew him to photography and film at this stage in his life?

Harriet Cozens 1:51

I think just to put a set a little bit of context, I think we should say that Cambridge was uh back in the 1920s. Um I didn't come along until the 1960s. So everything we're talking about happened long before he actually had a family. Right. So these are stories and things that we have been told and and led to believe. So it's not absolute, but it's our understanding. Um going from his later life, he loved technology and emerging technology. So he always had to have the most up-to-date camera. Right. So if you take that back to the 1920s, his father as well had been one of the very early electricians. So I think curiosity to do with technology was something that he loved. Yeah. And I think that's probably, we think that's very much how he got into doing photography and film and so on and so forth. And he did love it. It was a passion of his all his life. Yes. So um, some of the films from Cambridge, they're all available, I think, on the Downing Street, uh, the Downing College websites because they got his films. And there are some wonderful ones where he has taken um people skating on the backs with uh King's College in the background. Yeah. They're ice skating on the on the river, which is known as the backs, and then it merges seamlessly into summer and people punting in the same location. So he was very, I'm gonna say artistic. Yeah, he he had a he had a a director's eye, and he had a um, he knew what he wanted to try and get across. So I think you know, that's where he probably was allowed to, he really started to do his photography. Although there are other photographs in albums that are older than um prior to to Cambridge, and those are photographs that he was taking then. So they would have been, you know, when he was because he only went to Cambridge when he was 19. So I suppose um to set into context, he was 1904 to 1995, so a very long life, yeah, a very long life. Um so you know, he started his photography and his love of technology fairly early on. We we only jokingly said a couple of months ago, goodness only knows what he'd have been like with computers. Yeah.

SDS Kate 4:48

Oh wow. So um, because this is my Christmas podcast, um, I would like to focus on his time in the Arctic. So um in 1930 he took part in the British Arctic Air Route Expedition, and we can see an Arctic album preserved in his digital archives online. And um, do you know um anything about um what he captured there? Um did he ever speak of the challenges at all filming in those extreme conditions back in 1930?

Harriet Cozens 5:23

Yes, he went to the Arctic in 1930 uh with the Arctic Air Route Expedition, as you so rightly say, and he was on loan from the RAF, and he was only meant to be there for the summer, so they got there in I suppose about July, and I think he was meant to leave sort of September time, so not a very long amount of time, but then the RAF said no, he could stay for the whole expedition, and his photographs are well, they are quite amazing, really, because they they show as well as being I'm not I think his role was photographer, bizarre. Um, but because he was a pilot, that was very useful because it meant that he could also do piloting duties, right? And he could also help with radio work. Um and and so he never went on the big expeditions, he was much more base, um, but he would always help them for the first mile or so. Right. And his his photos his photographs are wonderful, so they do show the hut that they were living in. And he's got he's got wonderful photographs with the Inuits, actually with them in the hut, and then feeding the huskies at um or the dogs, the sled dogs, and everything, and they're literally throwing lumps of meat off a roof, and then you've got these dogs all around the bottom. He did tell us some stories like um never eat polar bear level liver because it will kill you because it's so high in vitamin C. Oh, right. You know, yeah. We have picked up some useful things, and we also have his original um Inuit uh wool stocking socks type of thing, uh, and some gloves. And when I look at this the socks, I'm thinking, hmm, those used to be the socks that we used to put on the end of our bed for Father Christmas.

SDS Kate 7:30

Oh, that's lovely. Oh, that's a lovely story.

Harriet Cozens 7:34

They're they're very robust, let's put it that way. Um and I I think he he he was um again, he was only a young man. I mean, he was 26 when he was doing that. Yeah, that's gosh, you know, it's achieved a lot. It's it's a lot to have achieved, and I know that he got the um Arctic silver medal, polar medal for doing that. Yeah, now of course, as I said, all of this happened long before we came along. Yeah, I can only guess how proud his parents would have been for him to achieve that. He didn't come from the society. The yeah, I can't say the echelons of society because that sounds a bit pompous, but they were just an ordinary middle class family. They they he did go to um uh a private day school in London, but you know, he didn't go to boarding school or anything like that. So to actually be to get a permanent commission in the RAF, there must have been something about him.

SDS Kate 8:55

Yeah, special.

Harriet Cozens 8:56

Yeah, definitely to have come from the the where he came from in society, which was not the bottom, don't get me wrong, it was not the bottom, but it wasn't the normal level where the officer grades came from. So I think you know, he must have had a real something very special. I think so. Definitely have been able to have done these things, yes.

SDS Kate 9:19

So he also, like as you said, had an extraordinary RAF career um and rising to command, the 19th squadron, leading the first RAF squadron to fly Spitfires operationally, and um, I think he won a medal for that as well, didn't he?

Harriet Cozens 9:38

Um I think he got we think he got the CB for that. Yeah um but there is a story behind that, and I just want to flip in there as well that between the Arctic and the 19th squadron, he was in Iraq, and there's a whole archive of his time as well. Yeah, um, I don't think he enjoyed Iraq very very much, but um that that was something from other. I think it was probably too hot more than anything else. Um when he became um commanding officer of 19 Squadron, they would they were flying gauntlets. And right by 1937, the military knew war was coming, you know. They they they knew it was coming. And I and one of the um actually I think it's in his obituary, you know, they basically said gauntlets weren't even quick enough to run away from so um the this the Spitfires come in and they were going to be up in Catrick, right, in Yorkshire. But yes, as you so rightly say, Daddy was determined that he was going to have them. Um, so some some words in the air ministry's ears, basically saying, Well, wouldn't you like them closer to London so you can come and see them? And so on and so forth. And by the way, I'm an engineer type of thing, all slightly all swung it so that he became the first commanding officer of 19 Squadron. And he wrote, along with another officer, a report that actually resulted in early modifications of the Spitfire because it the Spitfire was the first plane that had retractable um landing gear, and many a pilot was frequently shouted at by somebody on the ram saying, lower your wheels, lower your wheels, because the previous ones all had static wheels, so you just they didn't come up and down, you know, they were there and and off they went. Um, but the Spitfire they got retracted, and one of the ways they had to literally pump them up and down, and one of the things that the Spitfire pilots got was Spitfire Knuckle, because it would be hitting and it would be rubbing all the skin off their knuckles for them to lay lever it up and down, and that was one of the small modifications that was made.

SDS Kate 12:10

Oh wow, that's that's amazing information. Um, so did he carry on creatively in his film photography uh during wartime?

Harriet Cozens 12:20

He absolutely did. Um he he was he didn't take part in the Battle of Britain because he was considered too old. Not quite sure how at 36 he could be considered too old, but he was considered too old to fly and possibly too important because of all his knowledge and his abilities and his skills, um, you know, they they weren't going to want to lose somebody who they had trained up for the last 15, 17 years or whatever it might have been. Um so, you know, probably quite sensible in there. Um there was I'm just going to one thing that um when I was looking at his because before I did this, I thought well, I better just have a look at his career. And one of the things I spotted, which actually is in its own right very fascinating. 12th of July 1941, he was the staff liaison with the US Army and the US Air Force. Wow. They were in the war, they didn't join until Pearl Harbor. So obviously stuff had been going on in the background, potentially. Yeah. Before before that, um yeah. Um, he flew desks, which he didn't like. Um and in May 43 he became the officer commanding RAF Hem Hemswell, which was a uh a Lancaster base, right? And he took full advantage of his position, basically. He he um decided that uh he wanted to do a film, and so therefore he uh commandeered colour film on the basis that this was going to be a training film for people, and he then had took which now is a oh and I can't think of the word I'm looking for. Um it's a stunning film. It's a film of the day in the life of a Lancaster and its crew. So you start in the morning with the Lancaster being prepared, and then you get the um Lancaster being bombed up, armed up, and then you get the crews being told where they're going, and then you see a big Lancaster taking off, and then you see um the the flight, and then you see a bombing raid, and then you see them coming back, having to land by Fido. Uh it was basically a fog dispersal system, and I don't absolutely know what it stands for, but I think it would be something like fog um incendiary dispersal operation or something, because there were huge great pipes running down the side of the certain runways in Lincolnshire that had holes in, they would pump petrol down them and then set the petrol alight or aircraft fuel or what have you, and that would burn off the fog and allow the planes to land. So they could see, so they could see, yeah, yeah. Otherwise, they wouldn't be able to land and they would be running on fumes and just it would be you know a nasty end for them. Um, so you can watch this film and think, oh, that's a really, really good film. It's not until you actually understand the background of it that this was a done as a training film for crews who were new to bombers, so they could understand what they were going to be facing, that you actually realize that this film was taken by a real person under real um conditions. So he was on a bombing raid, yeah, and there is an iconic, that's the word I was looking for earlier, an iconic um uh scene which frequently is used in TV programs, where you have the the city underneath, which is a real city, yeah burning, then you see a Lancaster underneath. Yeah. And my you think, well, how on earth did he get that? Well, he got that shot because he was hanging out of the bomb doors of his Lancaster, which was which was above the one that was below him, right? And quite a lot of Lancasters were lost to friendly bombs from Lancasters above them. Which yeah, um not I don't know how many, but I just know that you know that something that that did happen. Um, so that film was subject to the official secrets act until 1979, right when it was released, and then it was shown on the BBC. And since then it has been used in snippets of it have been used in so many programs, and even now, where are we now? 70 he took it in 43, so we're what 72 years later, yeah. People are still interested.

SDS Kate 17:51

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I can remember seeing film of Lancaster's, and it may be what uh your father filmed. It probably was.

Harriet Cozens 18:00

I mean, there were some lovely sort of stories behind it, and this is where he he used his his position as the command officer commanding because he there's a fabulous uh shot in it where you've got this long snake of Lancaster's all taxiing around around the uh the runway and what have you. And he had basically said to them, right, chaps, it's Sunday morning, you need some taxiing practice, so get into your Lancasters and go off for a taxi round thing. No, no, all he really wanted was a really good shot, like a filmmaker's shot of having these Lancaster taxiing, yeah. Again, you know, it's an iconic image, and he would meld the film together, he melded it together because at one stage you've got um the Lancaster, and he's in the cockpit with this young, young man, you know, trying to heave this huge beast of a plane off the ground, and yeah, you've got you know the noise and all the rest of it. And at the next thing, you've got it uh from outside of the Lancaster where he's in a um, I'm assuming he's on the back of a of a Land Rover or something charging alongside the Lancaster. Yeah, you know, it's it's as if it's the same one, it obviously isn't, but it doesn't matter. It's no it's it's the sort of filmmaker in him, yes, direct better words, yeah. Yeah, so anyway, that's um yes. So he carried on filming, yeah. So he did carry on filming, yes, absolutely. Um, and we were subject to a huge amount of filming during our our childhoods for summer holidays and what have you, and having to pose and wait for him to have done something. And and my mother said that on their honeymoon they spent six hours waiting for uh um a removal lorry to move so he could get a picture of a French gorge of something. And by the time he did move, the the the sun had gone. Oh lovely. Yes, he and everything that happened at home. So when we had a um a roof, we had an old barn at home that was um thatched and that got replaced and with tiles, so all of that is pictured. Yeah, built the building of a swimming pool was filmed, the building of a tennis court was filmed, and basically anybody who came to the house who was going to do anything that was major, they got they got to know very quickly they would be filmed and photographed doing this work.

SDS Kate 20:47

Oh, that's amazing. It's amazing.

Harriet Cozens 20:49

But he loved technology, so he um he mechanised our old village uh church, the church clock that used to have to be wound by hand, but he mechnised it so it didn't need to be wound every day by hand and and things like that. So um yeah, he he just we didn't so much, he didn't so much, but most of it was all done before we as his family came along, and it's only when we sort of actually look at it we go, wow, wow, what a what a thing, what a life you had, yeah, how much you achieved from in well, it was a long life, but how much you achieved in it, you know, it was quite it's quite incredible. Um, and my daughter has a claim to fame, which I know may sound a little bit odd, but um she was born six months before my father died. So he obviously held her, yeah. But she can say she was held by a man who was held by a man. Man who was born in 1811. Oh, yes. Because my father's grandfather had been born in 1811. He died in 1905. My father had been born in 1904. Yeah. So my grandfather would have held my father. Yeah. Then my father died in 1995, but it held my daughter. Oh that's a legacy. Yeah, it is something. It is, it is quite something. Yes. And what we've just spoken about is just touching the surface of everything he's done.

SDS Kate 22:37

Yes, tip of the iceberg. So I'm gonna ask you a really difficult question now. If you had to choose, is there a particular item or aspect of the archives that is especially meaningful to you that you could share with us?

Harriet Cozens 22:51

I love um, and I did have to think about this because there is so much, but actually, I love two early photograph albums of and photos that's that he had taken. Obviously, some of them are family, uh, you know, Victorians and what have you, but the ones that he has taken, and you can uh track his um incidents of crashing cars. There are many crashing cars in the in the albums that he has gone and totaled in some way, shape, or form. Um, but the one that the photograph that really, really resonates with me and gets and and every time I see it, I just think, wow. There's a a man sitting in grass with a dog, and underneath it it says Owen Piggott and Rufus. Dog being Rufus. And this is dated 1927. Owen Piggott is my grandfather. Oh, God. So my father was taking a picture of his colleague, might now my grandfather, before my grandfather was even married, and three years before my mother was even born. I just find when I saw that photograph, I thought, wow, that's how many people would would would have that type of no, yeah. I'm not gonna say strange, it is slightly strange. Yeah. It's to me that's just an amazing photograph.

SDS Kate 24:25

Yes, he documented so much. It's it's it it's been amazing exploring your father's collections and records. I mean, it really has, and I was struck by by his remarkable talent uh looking through the archives. So, and I have to say thank you so much for an impressive festive visit to your father's digital archives.

Harriet Cozens 24:46

You're very welcome. You are very welcome. Thank you, Harriet. Thank you.

SDS Kate 24:54

A fascinating glimpse into the impressive and full life of Air Commodore Cozens. For this and more stories, visit www.talesfromthearchives.co.uk I'm heading back to HQ, where our latest collection of wonderful archives awaits, and where we'll uncover another remarkable story next time. Ho ho ho ho Merry Christmas.